


how do you want to be remembered? (And He Was Happy, In the End)

by closedcartridge



Category: Whiplash (2014)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Recovery, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closedcartridge/pseuds/closedcartridge
Summary: No, Fletcher could not be proud of something. That man could never be proud of a person. An achievement, maybe, but not a person. The realisation hits him with enough force to make him jolt away from him, the world around him searing back into light.Or; the ending of Whiplash broke my heart so here’s a post-canon fix-it fic where Andrew finishes his performance and decides that no, he won’t become one of Fletcher’s tools. Sort of a character study about how he would be okay, eventually. Short but happy.
Kudos: 10





	how do you want to be remembered? (And He Was Happy, In the End)

It didn’t hit him until after he’d finished the performance. Blood, sweat and a sickly adrenaline-satisfaction mix that coursed through him in fits and waves. 

No fear, no anger, just pride, burning and boiling and screaming through his system, running hot.

A man stands in front of him, barely recognisable in the silhouetted haze of the lights that are still dazzling him. It’s his father - maybe, possibly, perhaps - but the image is distorted. 

There’s a sea of faces around him, some clapping him on the back, others cheering. Most congratulating him (not his father, he doesn’t think), but none mattering. Only one face shone through the haze; and he knew. And they both knew.

Andrew was incredible. Flawless.  _ Brilliant _ . (Sick)

(He was going to burn up.)

“I’m proud of you, son,” the one clear face tells him, Fletcher’s hand clamping down onto one shoulder.

Andrew screams.

The spell is broken and his touch is electric.

Because no, Fletcher could not be proud of something. That man could never be proud of a  _ person _ . An achievement, maybe, but not a person. The realisation hits him with enough force to make him jolt away from him, the world around him searing back into light.

His father is there. He doesn’t ask questions, just opens his arm and pulls his son towards him, away from the heat of the man who’d made him  _ this _ . Following his father, a few steps into the chaos and Fletcher is gone. A trumpet player is to his left and the audience is mingling all around them. They stand well clear of Andrew as he shudders his way through the crowd, like a child pulled tight against his father’s side.

But no more Fletcher. 

He is free - ish.

-

Resting is incredibly difficult for Andrew at first. Almost every moment  _ hurts _ , but they don’t stop coming, and things start to smooth over. Eventually.

Old wounds were reopened, stitches and staples pulled out again where they’d scabbed over with infections, and the blood oozed into healing. The months were defined by therapy sessions, and Emergency Room visits, broken doors and splintered drumsticks.

Healing is not easy when you’re constantly removing pieces that echoed into your past.

“What do you want to be at the end of this, Andrew?”

(his voice is still not his own. it is a box, put there by Fletcher, parroting his dogma)

“Nothing. Drumming is all I’ve ever had.”

But people evolve and time passes and something of himself starts to emerge again. Fresh people, without the history. The boy who attends the therapy appointment after his; the girl working in McDonald’s who brought him napkins when he had shook too hard and thrown coffee all over himself. The elderly lady at the library; the others at the part-time job he picks up close to home.

Somewhere, out of the drumming that had become his life, the real Andrew stepped out. 

The Andrew that would stay up all night watching documentaries emerged, and he was happy, trying and testing new activities until things clicked.

In the end, he did pick up the drums again.-

\- Not for a long time, though. Not at first. Not until six years down the line when his friends unearth an old copy of  _ Guitar Hero _ . He refuses the drums gingerly at first, taking the guitar instead. They all play, badly, but well enough to succeed, and it’s  _ fun _ , and for the first time in years playing music doesn’t feel like suffocating.

So at the end of the night, he picks up the fake drumkit and plays. 

It’s nothing like a real drum kit, he knows that. The feeling is all wrong; not enough give under each hit and the size is all off, pieces in the wrong positions - but his body recognises the symbolism behind it well enough - it serves its purpose. At first he feels nauseous as he plays, but then the music takes over and it’s nothing; just rhythm and actions and noise.

He cries when he gets home, but it’s a relief. A sign that Fletcher’s hands have started to untangle themselves from his mind, pulling back and freeing parts of his head bit by bit. Andrew has reclaimed drumming; not to its former glory, but to something harmless.

He no longer feels the tobacco-like itch between his fingers, desperate for another hit. It’s just an instrument, just a game.

In the end, Andrew can never get back into drumming - not like he had, anyway - and that’s for the best. The world no longer revolves around music, it just  _ revolves _ , regardless. Plants grow in the little patch he’s made for himself in the garden, and things continue to begin again, over and over. 

Happiness finds him, in the end. 

_ Or he found happiness _ , he thinks. Knees tucked up to his chest, he realises he probably took the long way around, but that’s okay. He arrived at his destination, and the ache to be  _ known _ has been lifted from his shoulders. The jumper he wears is soft and knitted, just thick enough to protect him from the burn of the mug of coffee he has clutched in his hands. 

Across the room from him, a girl he’d met one night in McDonald’s is stood on his sofa, laughing wildly as she angles a laser pen at a boy he had met in the library one time. A cat pounces on the boy and it sends them both laughing, and their laughter is home, and friendship, and warmth.

“Are you going to come over here and stop her from torturing me?” The boy shriek-laughs in Andrew’s direction as he tries to duck out of the way of another cat-attack.

Andrew smiles, and laughs, and puts his coffee down, “Of course.”

He joins his friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi sorry I still can’t write anything with a normal plot it’s emotional character explorations or nothing x
> 
> On a more serious note, I hope this feels fairly in-character, I’ve not watched Whiplash in years I just wrote this in an hour because I couldn’t sleep until I wrote something where Andrew was actually happy in the end.


End file.
